The Top 5 Solar Discoveries

  • Released Wednesday, March 18, 2009
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A countdown of the top 5 solar discoveries from the Sun-Earth Connection Education Forum. These include the discoveries of sunspots, the solar cycle, the heliosphere, aurora formation, and space weather.

An introduction plus Number 5 in the Top 5 Solar Discoveries, which include the discovery of sunspots by Galileo in 1609.

Number 4 in the Top 5 Solar Discoveries: The Seasons of the Sun. This talks about the discovery and importance of the 11-year solar cycle.

Number 3 in the Top 5 Solar Discoveries is the finding of how the auroras form from magnetic reconnection.

Number 2 in the Top 5 Solar Discoveries is the finding of the 'squashed' heliosphere when Voyager 1 and 2 crossed the bubble of solar wind at different distances from the sun. This led to a change in the way we see the shape of our heliosphere.

Number 1 in the Top 5 Solar Discoveries is the importance of space weather and the research that strives to predict it more accurately.

Credits

Please give credit for this item to:
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center

This page was originally published on Wednesday, March 18, 2009.
This page was last updated on Wednesday, May 3, 2023 at 1:54 PM EDT.

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  • Top 5 Solar Discoveries (ID: 2009011)
    Friday, March 13, 2009 at 4:00AM